A Favorite of the Queen: The Story of Lord Robert Dudley and Elizabeth 1

by Jean Plaidy

  She wept a little. “Like a sheep to the slaughter I am led,” she said, as her ladies helped her to retire.

  As she lay in her bed unable to sleep, the door of her room was quietly opened; the curtains of her bed were suddenly divided, and she found herself held tightly in a pair of loving arms.

  “Kat!” she sobbed in relief. “How did you get here?”

  “Hush, my love! Hush, my little lady! I am free once more. This prisoner is released, so what did she do? When she heard her lady was on the way she arrived before her. I reached the house before Master Bedingfeld and his merry men. And what do we care, sweetheart, since we are together!”

  “What do we care!” said Elizabeth and began to laugh.

  Kat lay beside her on the bed; and through the night they talked of what had happened.

  Elizabeth said suddenly: “And, Kat, what do you think? I had an adventure when I was in the Tower. You remember Robert Dudley?”

  “Remember him! Who could forget him! The loveliest man I ever saw … except one.”

  “Except none!” said Elizabeth.

  And they pulled the bed coverings over their heads that they might gossip and laugh together without being overheard.

  Elizabeth’s captivity at Woodstock passed merrily enough. Kat was with her, and Sir Henry Bedingfeld did not think it necessary to report this matter to the Queen. Perhaps he knew that if he did so Kat would be removed and that removal would mortally offend the Princess Elizabeth. He could see no harm in Kat’s being with her.

  So they were together as they had been in the old days. There was laughter and gossip and talk which if overheard might have been called treason.

  When they were alone Kat whispered: “Your Majesty!” and that was sweet music to Elizabeth. Kat read the cards with that flattering skill which provoked much laughter.

  “Here is that dark, handsome man again! See how close he is to your little Majesty. We shall hear more of him, I doubt not.”

  It was like the old days when Kat had seen another handsome man in the cards. They had recognized him as Thomas Seymour. Kat reminded Elizabeth that she had been wont to say there would never be one like him, never one so charming.

  “But then,” said Elizabeth, “I did not really know Robert Dudley.”

  FOUR

  When the Princess Elizabeth was taken from the Tower, Robert fell into deep melancholy. There were times when he felt he would go mad if he were left much longer in his dismal cell. He would look through the bars at the grass on which she used to walk, and he would remember others who had spent a lifetime in the Tower. Shall I be here until I am old and gray? he would wonder. But he did not really believe that could happen to Robert Dudley.

  There was nothing to do but brood. If Elizabeth were Queen … ah, if Elizabeth were Queen, she would not suffer him to stay long in the Tower.

  But at length change came.

  It was June, and he had heard from the jailers and his servants that preparations were going forward for the reception of the Prince of Spain, who was already on his way to England.

  The Queen was not yet forty; she would marry Philip and if there were children of the marriage, there was small hope of Robert Dudley’s regaining his freedom.

  “My lord,” said his jailer one day, “prepare to leave this cell. You are to be taken to the Bell Tower, there to share a room with your brother the Earl of Warwick.”

  He felt elated. He might have known that Fortune would not allow him to continue gloomy. It would be good to be with brother John.

  The brothers embraced warmly. Imprisonment had left a deeper mark on John, Earl of Warwick, than on Robert; John had had no charming adventure with which to while away the time. He brightened with the coming of Robert, although they were very sorrowful recalling their father and Guildford.

  “It might have been you … or I,” they reminded each other. “Mere chance made it poor Guildford.”

  “Yet,” said John, “how do we know we shall not meet a like fate?”

  “Nay!” cried Robert. “If they intended that, the deed would have been done ere now. If we stay here quietly and nothing happens to call attention to us, we shall, ere long, be free.”

  John smiled. “That is like you, Robert. You always believed that something miraculous was reserved for you.”

  “How can you know that it is not!”

  “What … for a poor prisoner in the Tower!”

  “Other poor prisoners have survived and risen to greatness.”

  “You are indeed a Dudley,” said John, not without a trace of sadness in his smile.

  Fortune was turning in their favor. They were to be allowed to have visitors. Their wives might come and see them in their cells; their mother might also come.

  Jane came first, and bravely she smiled at her two sons. John looked ill, she thought; Robert had scarcely changed at all.

  “My darling,” she cried. “Why, John … how thin you are! And you … you are still my Robin, I see.”

  “Still the same, dear Mother.”

  “You keep your spirits up, my dearest son.”

  “And mine too,” put in John. “He refuses to believe that we are unfortunate. We are certain of a great future, he says.”

  “Come,” said Robert, “it is not the first time the Dudley fortunes have been in the dust.”

  “Do not speak thus,” begged Jane. “That was how your father talked.”

  “But Father was a great man. Think of all he did.”

  Jane said bitterly: “All he did! He led his son to the scaffold, that with him he might shed his blood in the cause of ambition.”

  But Robert laid his arm about her shoulders. “Dear Mother, that is the way of the world.”

  “It shall not be your way, Robert.”

  “Nay, do not fret. The axe is not for us. See how they keep us here. They leave us in peace. We are well fed, and now we may have visitors. Soon the day of our release will come.”

  “I pray for it each night,” said Jane fervently.

  She wished to know how they were fed, how their servants behaved.

  “We are allowed more than two pounds each week for food,” said Robert, “and more for wood and candles. So you see, Mother, if we do not live like kings, we do not live like beggars.”

  “I rejoice to hear it. But there is an evil odor here.”

  “It comes from the river.”

  “We dread the hot days,” said John.

  “I will speak to the servants. They must take great care to keep the apartments sweet. This is not a good place to be in … especially during the summer.”

  Robert was determined to drive away gloom. He was sure, he told her, that soon they would be free. He guessed it. He knew it. He had a way of knowing such things.

  She could smile as she listened to Robert.

  “How glad I am, dear John, that your brother is with you.”

  “It has been merrier since he came,” said John.

  And when Jane left them she felt happier than she had since she had lost them. That was due to her darling.

  He can charm away even my miseries, she was thinking.

  Amy came to see Robert. John asked that he should be taken to another cell, that husband and wife might be alone together.

  Amy clung to Robert, covering his face with kisses. He returned her embrace and for a short while he was ready to make love to her. It was so long since they had met.

  “Robert,” she insisted, “you still love me?”

  “Have I not made that clear?”

  “I have been so unhappy …”

  “And what have I been, do you think?”

  “But it has been so miserable without you. I thought that you would die.”

  “Nay. I have many years before me.”

  “Yes, Robert, yes. Do you think you will soon be free?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “But you do not seem to care.”

  He was thoughtful for a second or so. He was
thinking of freedom, the return to the life in Norfolk, farming, riding, making love to Amy. Was freedom so desirable? How foolish Amy was! He had a fancy for a different woman—a sharper-tongued, subtler woman, with flaming red hair and an imperious manner. He wanted a Princess, not a country girl.

  “Of what do you think?” she asked suspiciously.

  Had she sensed his desire for another woman? he wondered. Had she more discernment than he gave her credit for?

  He said: “I have been thinking that if I had not married you I might not be here now.”

  “Where would you be then?”

  “In my grave.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then she threw her arms about him. “Why, Robert, I am some use to you then.”

  He laughed aloud because the sun was shining outside and it was good to be alive. He lifted her and kissed her with that sudden abandonment which was a way of his.

  Now he was the passionate lover as he had been in the beginning, and when he was thus he was quite irresistible.

  Amy was happy. She was with him again. He loved her; he was glad they had married.

  She did not know that the memory of a Princess was constantly with him and that his thoughts of her filled him with a delightful blend of excitement, desire, and ambition.

  The days were hot and sultry. The smell of the befouled river pervaded the cell. The sweating sickness had come to London, and the most dangerous place in the City was the Tower.

  Day after day the corpses were taken out, but the place was still overcrowded, as it had been since the Wyatt rebellion. The heat hung over the river and the prisoners lay languid.

  One morning John complained of feeling very sick indeed. Robert looked anxiously at his brother. The Earl’s face was a sickly yellow color and, to his horror, Robert saw the drops of sweat forming on his brow.

  John had contracted the dreaded sweating sickness.

  Five of Robert’s brothers and sisters had died of this terrible disease. He wondered: Is John to be another?

  But he determined that it should not be so. He would not lose John that way. Here was something to be done after weeks of inactivity, and he was glad of it.

  He called to their two servants. They came running in.

  “The Earl is sick,” he said; and he saw the terrible fear in their faces. He felt reckless; in spite of his anxiety for his brother he almost laughed. He was not afraid. He knew that he would not die miserably in prison of the sweat. He would do his utmost to save his brother; he would be the one who was constantly with him, ministering to him, because he felt himself to be immune from infection. For greatness, he was sure, awaited Robert Dudley.

  It was a glorious feeling to be unafraid among the fearful.

  He said coolly: “Go at once to my mother. Tell her what has happened. Ask her to send some of her simples to me. Tell her she is not to come visiting until I send the word. Be very sure of that.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Already they were looking at him as though he were a god.

  He returned to his brother and, lifting him in his arms, he carried him to his bed and covered him up. He sat beside him and, when the palliatives arrived from his mother, he himself administered them.

  He talked to John, trying to arouse him. It was said that if the patient did not come out of his coma during the first twenty-four hours he would die.

  Robert often wondered afterward how he lived through that day and night; he himself must have been almost delirious.

  He found he was speaking his thoughts aloud. “The Princess Elizabeth is in love with me. Bars separated us and I could not approach her, yet was I assured of her love. If ever she becomes Queen, greatness awaits me … greatness such as our father never knew … the greatness he would have had for Guildford if all had gone as our father wished. I think of our grandfather—humble lawyer, a farmer’s son who rose to sit in the Council chamber of a King. I think of our father who became Protector of England—almost the King he wished Guildford to be. In two generations from obscurity to greatness … only to die on the scaffold. I am of the third generation. I shall learn from the mistakes of others. Perhaps in the third generation a Dudley shall be a king.”

  Yes, he must be almost delirious to speak such thoughts aloud.

  John opened his eyes suddenly and said: “Brother, is that you?”

  Then Robert knew that he had successfully nursed John through the sweating sickness, and he was certain that the sickness could not touch him. He was as certain of this as he was of the glorious future which awaited him.

  There were many Spaniards at the Court that summer. None could find so much favor with the Queen as a Spaniard. Her bridegroom had come and she doted on him.

  Jane Dudley—although she could not go to Court, was often found outside the palaces in which the Queen was residing.

  She pleaded with old friends. She gave gifts to the Spanish ladies. She would tell them of the fate of her sons. Would not this kind lady, that kind gentleman, seek a moment, when the Queen was in a soft mood, to speak a word for poor Jane Dudley?

  There were many who felt pity for her; and so those words were eventually spoken to the Queen.

  Mary loved her husband, and love had softened her.

  “Poor Jane Dudley,” she said, “what has she done to suffer so?”

  Jane was a heartbroken mother, and now that Mary soon hoped to be a mother, she understood maternal hopes and griefs. Jane’s sons had risen against the crown, but they had obeyed their father in this. Mary in love was a kindly Mary.

  As the hot summer gave place to autumn she decided she would pardon the Dudleys. They would still be attainted of high treason, of course, which meant that their lands and goods would not be restored to them; but they should have a free pardon.

  Jane was almost delirious with delight.

  At last her sons were to be free. Land and riches? What did they want with those? Let them live quietly, humbly; let them abandon their ambition which had proved so fatal to the family.

  But Jane’s joy was clouded. His imprisonment in the Tower had changed her eldest son John from a strong man to a weakling. He died a few days after his release.

  Of Jane’s thirteen children only five were left to her. Yet even while she wept for John she thanked God that Ambrose and Robert (and in particular Robert, for even the fondest mothers must have their favorites) had come safely through the ordeal.

  As Robert rode with Amy from London to Norfolk, all that elation which had come to him when the gates of the Tower had shut behind him, left him. He was conscious of a nagging frustration.

  His brother, whom he had nursed through sickness, was dead. His mother had Death written on her face. He realized how deeply she had suffered—far more deeply than any of them; and he knew that having spent her energies on working for their freedom, she would not live long to enjoy the result of her labors.

  And if he was a free man, what was left to him? Amy and life in Norfolk! It had been made clear that although the Queen had graciously granted him his liberty, he must expect no further concessions. He, Lord Robert, son of a man who had been ruler of England, was now nothing but a penniless youth, married to the daughter of a country squire on whose bounty he was dependent.

  When he looked at Amy he almost wished that she were not so faithful, or that he was less attractive.

  He said, almost hopefully: “I have been away a long time, Amy. You are young and pretty. Come, you have not been faithful to me all the time, I am sure.”

  She was indignant. “But, of course I have. How can you say such things?” Tears welled into her eyes. She went on: “Do you think that I could ever meet any to compare with you?”

  She gazed at him through her tears. He had grown a little older during his imprisonment, but he was no less attractive for that. If his mouth were more stern, that but added to his strength; and if the events of the last months had set a little sadness in his face, that but made his smile the more intriguing. Beneath
the sadness there was still that gaiety and vitality which told any woman who looked at him that he found life exciting, and that to be with him meant sharing in that excitement.

  He smiled at her, but there was a hint of impatience in his smile. He knew she spoke the truth. The women of the Court had always smiled on him; and poor Amy, tucked away in the country, had not their opportunities.

  His father-in-law greeted him with pleasure. He believed that if Lord Robert was unfortunately placed at this time, he would not always be so.

  “Welcome home, Robert. Right glad we are to see you. It will be good to have the house made brighter by your presence and poor Amy happy again. The girl has been moping about the place, driving us all to share her melancholy.”

  And so to the simple life. But how could the gay Lord Robert fit into that? Wistfully he thought of the Court and all the splendors he had once taken for granted. Robert the squire! Robert the farmer! It was too ironical. His great-grandfather had been a farmer. Had he, Robert, then completed the circle?

  He would ride about the estate, watching the laborers at their work as they threshed the corn in the barns. Sometimes he would take one of the long staves with the short club attached and help flail the corn because it gave him some satisfaction to hit something. He would take the fan-shaped basket in which the grain was winnowed and shake it in the wind. And these things he did with a fierce resentment. He, Lord Robert, deprived of his lands and riches, was now nothing but a farmer.

  He took part in the November killing of livestock and the salting for the winter; he gathered holly and ivy and decorated the great hall with it; he sang carols; he drank heartily, ate ravenously of the simple fare. He danced the country dances; he made love to the local women, among them the wife of a neighboring squire, and a dairy maid. It mattered not who they were, they were all Lord Robert’s if he willed it.

  But this could bring only temporary satisfaction.

  In January Jane Dudley died and was buried in Chelsea. She left the little she had to her children and expressed the hope that soon their full inheritance would be restored to them.